Welcome to Windows 7 Forums. Our forum is dedicated to helping you find support and solutions for any problems regarding your Windows 7 PC be it Dell, HP, Acer, Asus or a custom build. We also provide an extensive Windows 7 tutorial section that covers a wide range of tips and tricks.

Windows 7: Taskbar Thumbnail Previews - Enable or Disable

Hi i have this problem: when i hoover mouse on preview thumbnail the window won't appears on desktop.

I solved in this way:

1 open regedit (key "win + r" and type regedit)
2 navigate to [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
3 change value of key "DisablePreviewWindow" from 1 to 0.
4 log off and log in again
5 all done

I try too with 7+ Taskbar Tweaker, but some funcion works, but the tool doesn't solve the problem above.

First, I know that this stuff is some years old, but the system is still in use, everything is still valid, and people still read this as lurkers, so it's okay to add useful information.

None of the four options flawlessly disables thumbnail previews and list mode from showing up, on mouse over. All options have some problem, some catch...

Option one: It has the side effect of making tooltips show up immediately. This should be said on the tutorial (it's not said). The program, 7+ Taskbar Tweaker, doesn't provide a formal ability to merely disable thumbnail previews (and list mode). It offers the ability to not display anything on mouse over. While that disables thumbnail previews (and list mode) indeed, it also disables tooltips too. Tooltips reveal the full titles of windows so they are useful. The program offers the ability to replace thumbnail previews on mouse over with tooltips on mouse over. This way, the tooltips come up pretty much instantly on mouse over. That constant flickering of tooltips in and out is annoying, in a similar manner to why we're trying to disable thumbnail previews in the first place. Everywhere on the system, tooltips come up after the mouse idles for a brief amount of time. This keeps them from annoyingly coming up all the time. So this ability of replacing thumbnail previews with tooltips is no good either. As said initially, the program provides no formal ability to merely disable thumbnail previews and list mode from showing up on mouse over, without messing with tooltips, leaving them behaving normally, only showing up after about a second, rather than immediately.

Option four: It's the best option, it achieves the goal. It shouldn't be at the bottom of the list for those who want list mode gone too. But, it has a bug, where the thumbnail previews will still pop up inadvertently. This should be said on the tutorial (it's not said). Here's how the bug happens: You need to have option four's registry tweak in place. Drag a window button on the taskbar (reordering feature). Don't do anything special (like clicking somewhere) until the next step. Click the window button that was moved, because the window has now lost focus (go figure). Move the cursor outside of the window button. Now, the thumbnail previews pop up! Edit: Another bug... Using 7+ Taskbar Tweaker to make middle click close windows will have the thumbnail previews pop up as well... Too bad.

By the way, I tested with video recording software and using method one, tooltips show up after 0:00;12. Using method four, they show up after 0:01;02. It basically means that method one makes them instant, while method four holds them for a second, as is characteristic of normal tooltips.

So, thanks for the tip. It does come with a couple of not so great bugs.

I figured out how to do it! I'm talking about my post above. I must be the only one who knows how. It's necessary to use methods 1 and 4 in combination. In 7+ Taskbar Tweaker, set tooltips to show up on hover. On the other hand, set the registry as in step 4, but with the amount of time that tooltips should take to appear instead, which can be 1 or 2 seconds. Don't screw up editing the registry with the milliseconds and the decimal/hexadecimal thing. The couple of bugs that I mentioned in my previous post will still happen, but with tooltips instead and a bit differently, so they don't matter much.

There are loads of users out there on the internet asking about disabling the thumbnail previews... by the way.

I'm not sure what you mean since tooltips and thumbnail previews are two completely different settings.

Well, normally I wouldn't do this, but... See the attachment. Saw it? Good. Now let's try to do it:
Method 1 (Taskbar Tweaker): Makes tooltips show up instantly. Everyone knows that tooltips only appear after a brief period of time of being idle. Showing up instantly is not how they are supposed to work. Not a good method.
Method 4 (registry tweak): Is buggy. Thumbnail previews will still pop up under certain scenarios. Not good.
Solution: Combine method 1 with 4, using both of them results in no issues at achieving the objective proposed.

Taskbar Thumbnail Previews - Enable or Disable

Taskbar Thumbnail Live Previews - Enable or Disable in Windows 7How to Enable or Disable Taskbar Thumbnail Live Previews in Windows 7
This will show you how to enable or disable having taskbar thumbnail live previews display a Aero Peek of the open window on the desktop when you hover the pointer over a taskbar thumbnail preview of a icon with a open window...

Tutorials

Internet Explorer Individual Taskbar Previews - Enable or DisableHow to Enable or Disable Internet Explorer Individual Tabbed Browsing Taskbar Preview Windows
This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable the individual taskbar preview windows in IE8, IE9, and IE10 when using tabbed browsing in Windows 7 and Windows 8.
If enabled, each tab used...

Tutorials

Thumbnail Previews - Enable or DisableHow to Enable or Disable Explorer Thumbnail Previews in Windows 7 and Windows 8
This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable thumbnail previews in Windows Explorer for all or specific users in Windows 7 and Windows 8.
Displaying thumbnails in Windows Explorer will require that...

Tutorials

Photoshop PSD files - Enable Thumbnail PreviewsHi, i recently enabled this view for psd files it works good, but now i have decided to set it back to default,i deleted the priscon.dll but the psd view is still in jpeg?how do i see the psd file original again? thank you.:p

General Discussion

How to disable the taskbar thumbnail previews?I've searched a lot about how to do it, but I coudn't find it anywhere. I want to disable this preview:
http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/7765/previewbh.jpg
Things that I've already tryied:
- Disabling Aero Peek. It just disables the visualization of the windows, when I put my mouse...